Former US House Speaker Dennis Hastert indicted on federal charges

Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said.

The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, 73, was not immediately available for comment.

The indictment alleges Hastert withdrew a total of around $1.7 million in cash from various bank accounts from 2010 to 2014, then provided the money to a person identified in the indictment only as "Individual A." Hastert allegedly agreed to pay the person $3.5 million, but never apparently paid that full amount.

It notes that Hastert was a high school teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981 in suburban Yorkville, about 50 miles west of Chicago. While the indictment says Individual A has been a resident of Yorkville and has known Hastert most of Individual A's life, it doesn't describe their relationship.

The indictment says Hastert agreed to the payments after multiple meetings in 2010. It says that "during at least one of the meetings, Individual A and defendant discussed past misconduct by defendant against Individual A that had occurred years earlier" and Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million "in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A."

The indictment says that between 2010 and 2012 Hastert made 15 cash withdrawals of $50,000 from bank accounts at Old Second Bank, People's State Bank and Castle Bank and gave cash to Individual A around every six weeks.

Around April 2012, bank officials began questioning Hastert about the withdrawals, and starting in July of that year, Hastert reduced the amounts he withdrew at a time to less than $10,000 — apparently so they would not run afoul of a regulation designed to stop illicit activity such as money laundering, according to the indictment.

Among the focuses of the FBI investigation was whether Hastert, in the words of the indictment, was "the victim of a criminal extortion related to, among other matters, his prior positions in government." The court document does not elaborate.

Investigators questioned Hastert on Dec. 8, 2014, and he lied about why he had been withdrawing so much money at a time, the indictment alleges. He told investigators he did it because he didn't trust the banking system, the indictment says.

"Yeah ... I kept the cash. That's what I am doing," it quotes Hastert as saying.

Hastert served as a Republican congressman from suburban Chicago for more than 20 years before resigning from the House in November 2007, having lost the speaker's job when Democrats gained control of the House in the 2006 elections.

As speaker, Hastert pushed President George W. Bush's legislative agenda, helping pass a massive tax cut and expanding Medicare prescription drug benefits.

Hastert joined the Washington law firm Dickstein Shapiro in 2008 as a senior adviser. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange said Thursday that Hastert resigned from its board.

Wire services